Fefsi Vijayan

S Vijayan is a South Indian actor, director and stunt co-ordinator who works in the Tamil film industry, Hindi film industry and the Telugu film industry. He is also known as FEFSI Vijayan, Pepsi Vijayan, Fightmaster Vijayan or Vijayan Master. He is the father of the South Indian actor Shabarish Vijayan. Vijayan worked as a stunt director in movies like Mantri Gari Vinayyakudu, Bodyguard and several others. He won the Nandi Awards for Best Fight Master in 2001 for Bhadrachalam, in 2002 for Takkari Donga, in 2003 for Okkadu, in 2006 for Pokiri and 2011 for Dookudu. He won the Filmfare Awards for Best Action in 2010 for Wanted and 2011 for Dabangg.

He also won an IIFA award and a Zee Cine Award for Dabangg in 2011. He was nominated for a Vijay Award for the Best Action Director in 2007 for Pokkiri and in 2009 for Villu. One of his latest films as a stunt director is the action flick Temper directed by Puri Jagannadh. The Telugu film hit the big screens on 13th February 2015. Vijayan acted in movies like Mantri Gari Vinayyakudu, Vambu Sandai and several others. He was a candidate for a Filmfare Award under the Best Villain – Tamil category in 2004 for Joot.

Vijayan’s latest onscreen appearance as an actor was in the action flick Muthuramalingam directed and written by Rajadurai. The Tamil film hit the silver screens on 24th February 2017. Vijayan directed the Telugu suspense thriller Shri Mahalakshmi in 2007 and the Tamil flick Markendyan. He also wrote the script and produced Markendyan, his son Shabarish played the titular character.

Vijayan was the leader of the Film Employees’ Federation of South India, an organization consisting of over 25 thousand members dedicated to the rights and betterment of the film industry’s technicians. He led the group from the 1990’s till 2009. In 1997, Vijayan led a major protest by FEFSI against Balu Mahendra for recruiting technicians from the ‘outside’.

The issue escalated when after the strike being called off at government order, producers refused to hire technicians affiliated with FEFSI protesting rising wages and demanded the formation of new organizations dedicated solely to production. Vijayan refused these demands in the interest of the technicians and small-time artists. This led to delay of several film releases like Jeans, Sethu and Kadhal Rojave, and financial losses amounting a few crore rupees forcing producers to relent. This incident is how Vijayan earned the moniker FEFSI Vijayan and erroneously as Pepsi Vijayan.